I’ve been watching the Doctor since I stumbled upon Tom Baker on PBS while in junior high and was hooked. I’ve attended conventions, collected Jelly Babies and more. Now I’ve created a Dr Who t-shirt idea for the woot! shirt derby (contest). I invite you to hop on over and ask that you vote for it. If it wins first, 2nd or 3rd place they make it available for purchase. I hope everyone likes it. And thank you! Now off to save the universe.

A speech Ryan could have given in The Battle of Ranskar av Kolos (discussion in the episode thread):

I was never anything but a bus driver, Tim Shaw. You probably don’t know much about that, being an alien and all. But I was a bus driver, and a good one.

I got to work on time, drove my route on time, and kept to my route. I was dependable, I was. People could rely on me being where I was supposed to when I was supposed to, and thanks to me they’d get where they wanted to go, when they wanted to get there.

Then there was Grace, my wife, the woman you killed. She was a nurse, and a good one. Kept people alive, but she did more than that. She kept ’em living. Living their life, and living a better life than they would have without her.

So here I am holding a gun on you. I could be just like you, shooting people. I could keep you from living your life, stop you from going on, wherever it is you want to be going.

But a bus driver is better than that, and so is a nurse. I’m the better man. [Lowers gun.]

I like that! Thing is, is it possible, having seen him in Rosa, knowing the sort of person he is, knowing he was nursed back to health by the lady who would become his wife, would such a narrative be necessary?

I know that Thane likes a particular thriller author. This author, in his books, writes something like this:

“In films and books, the hero has time to present his case in order to arrest the villain they’ve been searching for across days/weeks/years but in the end, those speeches are wasted because the villain isn’t going to understand or care. He might try and trick the good character and in real life there isn’t time for long speeches. Everyone’s too damn tired.”

The baddie begs: “don’t shoot me. Don’t put me in the chamber for ever. I have teeth -money, people, planets…” The goodie is clever. He knows a trick when it’s coming. He knows the villain well enough now, who will say either “you are weak” or, “for Ux’s sake, stop TALKING!”

Next thing he’s in the chamber: “don’t leave me here. I hate it!”

And yet we don’t hear that because what else would we expect to hear? “I luurve it here, baby. Byee [finger wave]. See you in a 1000 years. You can’t resist meee, Gray-ham. I hold all of Grace’s memories. Mwah, mwha ha haa. She really rocked your bod, Gray-ham! Ha, haa!”

So, we’re left with the dialogue that Chibnall gave us. 😀 And it wasn’t what Tim Shaw should feel or why Graham isn’t going to kill him.

The episode, and the series, from the VERY first scene, was about the people, not the monsters. The monsters were often crappy or unbidden -like the spiders- those which weren’t, were in us: the American ‘chief,’ racism in the Deep South, the Kerblam system calling for ‘help’ against an organic enemy or the hatred of one cultural group for another in The Demons of the Punjab (really, the latter sums up the entire thing – the Witchfinder’s was also a battle between and ‘us’ and a ‘them’ -same with Arachnids – of which 80% of the world is currently frightened).

@thane16 – Thank you! I knew there’d be a case both for and against, thank you for being kind enough to present one of them.

I’m not going to take a side, I think it’s already clear that a) Rosa really worked for a whole lot of people as an episode, and b) I wasn’t one of them. 🙁 I could wish it worked for everyone, including me, but, shoot, if I’m going to start wishing, I think I’ll go for world peace and grown-up politicians, and leave TV scripts a lot farther down the list. 🙂

Not at all. Give peace a chance. I mean, of course, write, write away! That’s how we’re supposed to do things. Many years ago I was looking at a pretty famous conductor’s notations on a score of Beethoven and I didn’t really like what was there so I changed the notations (in brackets naturally) and the orchestra was twitchy. I said, “Bloc 88 you are ALL over the place! Again.”

They wouldn’t change it. It was so ingrained. I had to live with this souped up, heavy European, ‘look at ME’ score because the concert was fast approaching and I wanted something lighter, softer, faster. But, nope. They wouldn’t budge and thus not knowing me from Adam simply ignored me in that area. I realised they too wanted to shine . Probably why they were pretty amateur.

Also many years ago I was told by a dear friend, who went the same route, “it’s for the music. Not for the musicians or the orchestra: for the music.”

@thane16 – Thank you for that, and no worries, I’m always writing something.

As for Rosa and Season 11 in general, I watch very little television, and no dramas other than Who. What got me onto it was that RTD and Moffat were doing the same things I read SF for: to come up with an imaginative story premise, and then explore its ramifications. So while I understand the “ordinary people” thrust of this last season, that’s just what I don’t want; I’d watch other TV if that’s what I wanted.

But again, what I want is only what I want, and I don’t expect anyone anywhere to cater to me. (Besides, I’m writing all the time, so if I want stories of a particular type, I can just go ahead and write them.)

As to the experiences you and your friend had with the musicians, well, us visionaries are rarely appreciated properly. 😀

Just thought I’d share these theories of mine for how the Tardis might work =)

The Tardis has the ability to time travel, blend into its surroundings like a chameleon or disappear, and have a volume greater than its surface area. Though these capabilities seem like things that only exist in fiction, traveling into the future could be possible through use of time travel; the size of the interior could be possible with length contraction, tardis regions, or four dimensions; and the chameleon circuit could be achieved by length contraction, angled mirrors, lenticular images, or metamaterials.

To understand time travel, one must first understand relativity. A person in a boat will say land is passing by, but people on the land will say the boat is passing by: this is relativity. The value of time and motion depends on the frame of reference from which it is observed and measured. This applies to everything, even time. Light is the one exception; it moves at a constant speed no matter the frame of reference, a speed so fast that it takes essentially no time to go from point A to point B. A person walking in a fast-moving spaceship will say he is going a certain speed because he is measuring his distance/time relative to the spaceship, but observers outside the spaceship will say he is walking slower because they are measuring his distance/time relative to their positions on earth. This relativity is known as time dilation: “time appears to pass more slowly in a frame of reference that is moving relative to the observer.” Because of time dilation, a person in a spaceship moving near the speed of light will not age as quickly as someone on earth. Therefore if the Tardis travels at or near the speed of light, more time will have passed on earth than in the Tardis; Dr. Who will be in the “future.” Travelling into the past, however, is not possible because time only travels forward. Technically if earth itself were to reach the speed of light and the Tardis were to maintain a normal speed, then Dr. Who would age while people on earth did not. To those on earth, Dr. Who would seem to be from the future. In this scenario, however, earth would be traveling into the future rather than Dr. Who travelling into the past.

How would travelling at such high speeds affect Dr Who? Because all the laws of nature are the same in all uniformly moving frames of reference, time and movement in the Tardis would be relatively normal for him. The one thing that might pose a problem would be accelerating to reach the speed of light and decelerating to reach earth time. Motion for people in a vehicle is relatively normal for them, but when the bus accelerates or decelerates, the people are either pressed against the seat or thrown forward due to inertia.People leaving earth in a spaceship experience a lot of pressure and often pass out, so how much more would Dr. Who and objects in the Tardis be affected during such drastic changes in speed?

Another problem with time travel: The Tardis would need a nearly infinite impulseand nearly infinite energy to reach the speed of light. If a hyperdrive helps a ship travel a great distance in little or no time, then essentially the speed and distance are equal in value. Something like a hyperdrive would be needed to create such a nearly infinite force over so little to no time, so that the impulse would be nearly infinite. Currently scientists at NASA are working on EmDrive, a space engine that uses electric propulsion technology to create thrust without a propellant. Some believe that this engine would make time travel possible. How infinite energy could be acquired, however, is a question that may never be answered.

Although an object with a larger interior than exterior is not possible for a fact, there are a few theories as to how this could be. The first is through length contraction. As objects nearing the speed of light pass by a relative observer, their lengths seem to contract. For example, a 100m long spaceship zipping by earth at 87% the speed of light would look 50m long to people on earth. If the interior of the Tardis were to near the speed of light and the exterior were to move at normal speeds, then the larger interior would appear to be contracted enough to fit into the exterior. One problem with this theory is that the inside of the Tardis would only appear to be contracted to outside observers; there is no relative speed between Dr. Who and the interior Tardis. In his frame of reference, it would be the of the Tardis that was contracted. One can not say whether or not the interior would fit into the exterior because there are no absolutes when dealing with such relativity. Additionally, the Tardis would not be able to remain at rest but would have to constantly move at the speed of light. It could move microscopic distances – back and forth or in a circle – so that it would appear to be at rest, but objects inside would be thrown about due to inertia.

Another theory that could make this ability possible is through Lavinto’s “Tardis regions.” According to physical cosmology, the universe is expanding at an accelerating rate. Mikko Lavinto, however, believes this acceleration “could be an optical illusion created by areas of space that are bigger on the inside than they look on the outside.” Regions of space could be replaced with ones of bigger volumes but the same surface area because of their different curvatures. As the universe expands, the volume of these areas would grow more quickly, which would explain why it seems the expansion is accelerating. Also, these regions would look like areas of low density, which would explain voids. If Lavinto’s theory proved to be correct, then maybe Dr. Who’s Tardis could utilize the same effect on a much smaller scale.

A third theory is that the Tardis would be like a hypercube, existing in four dimensions. When a three-dimensional cube is held up to a light, its shadow appears as a two-dimensional square with a smaller one inside (See animation here). When the cube is rotated, the interior square in the shadow grows bigger while the exterior square grows smaller. Just as the 2D world can be seen as a shadow of the 3D world, the 3D world can be seen as a shadow of the 4D world. The shadow of a 4D hypercube would look like a cube with a smaller one inside, connected at the corners. When the hypercube is rotated, the interior cube in its “shadow” would grow bigger while the exterior cube would grow smaller – such that the smaller cube would “swallow” the bigger one. Even with an animation to help picture this 3D “shadow,” it is difficult to comprehend (See animation here). What the hypercube itself would look like is impossible to imagine. It is unknown whether or not four dimensions really exist, but some physics suggest that it is possible. In the Quantum Hall Effect, material is restricted to a 2D space and then an electric current is passed through. Under the right conditions, the interaction creates a voltage jump rather than a continuous flow. If people could perceive a fourth dimension, they would see the same effect there as well. If the Tardis was just a shadow of a 4D object, then it would be possible for its interior to be larger than its exterior.

The Tardis’ final ability is the chameleon circuit, the ability to blend in with its surroundings or turn invisible. One easy explanation would be the Tardis goes so near the speed of light that it would contract beyond visibility, but the inertia problem would occur. Another possibility is the Tardis would be coated in angled mirrors. This could work in rural landscapes because the angle of incidence is equal to the angle of reflection, so observers would not see their reflections but those of the surroundings. However, this would not work if there were multiple observers and/or unique landmarks because their reflections would stand out. A third possibility is the Tardis would be covered in screens of bullet-proof glass. Several images would be broadcasted at once, spliced up and interlaced, and the glass would be ridged. As the light from the images passes through the ridges, it would be refracted so that only one image could be seen at a time. Moving to a different spot of observation would show a different image. This effect, known as lenticular printing, would produce 3D images (if the screen was of high enough definition, the images would look real). All these possibilities are not very practical or efficient, which is why using metamaterials would be the most likely. All natural materials reflect and refract light: how much depends on how the electromagnetic waves of the light interact with the particles of the material. Metamaterial is an exception because it is artificially constructed. Its behavior depends on the properties of its material ingredients and the way they are assembled. Rather than reflect or refract light, metamaterials direct (or “guide”) light around an object and back to its original course, rendering the object invisible and shadowless. If the Tardis was surrounded by a properly constructed metamaterial, it could appear invisible. The only catch is metamaterial has only yet been created to work microscopically.

While the powers of the Tardis will probably never become a reality, they may still be possible. Though not on practical or applicable scales, time travel and invisibility have already been realized. An area with a larger inside than outside is highly improbable, but mankind’s understanding of space is rapidly advancing and may come to change what we believe about the universe. Questions of space and time, unknown dimensions, relativity and absolutes – the more one discovers, the less he finds he knows. Maybe after thousands of years a machine like the Tardis will not be such an unachievable idea.

Yeah so that’s it 😛 Let me know if anyone has some additions or further theories.

I’ve “always” been a Doctor Who fan. Well, at least for the last 700-and-something years, and last year I put the finishing touches on a Doctor Who game for Windows and Mac platforms.

It’s a graphical adventure-type game inspired by the old Lucas Arts adventure games and it’s free to download.

Let’s not talk too much about the story, lol, but the puzzles are inspired by stories mainly from the Fourth Doctors reign – and you play as him and will meet many classic monsters like Daleks, Cybermen, Sontarans … and Morbius along the way. The estimated time to play the game is around 1 hour if you know the solutions to all the puzzles but expect about 3-4 times that to figure out the puzzles.

You can find the game here: http://tardis.dk/wordpress/?page_id=1642
… yes, I have a TARDIS domain 😀

Hi, I just wanted to know everyones opinion, I am 19, and every since I was a very young girl, I have been obsessed with the doctor, never missed an episode, then season 6, episode 7 arrived, ‘a good man goes to war’. The episode where Riversong was born, but what shocked me the most was, her birth name was Melody, my name, you can imagine 11 year old me was speechless, Melody isn’t a common name at all, clearly this is just a coincidence, or is it???